Cali Kid Corals

Hair algae battle

I was thinking of getting a pair of sand sifting goby for those not so deep sand bed


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[QUOTE="Flagg37, post: 296180, member: 10882" If you don't vacuum it then you'll need a clean up crew to take care of it.[/QUOTE]

The caribsea Hawaiian is 1-3mm. My setup is about 2" deep. Planning to switch to a finer sand to make it easier for snails to burrow and trap less buildup. LFS talked me out of buying finer non-live sand.
 
I run a mixture of Tropic Eden mini flakes (2mm) and reef flakes (3mm) and the few snails that I have aren't having any issues swimming through it. Sand bed is ~2.25" all around.
 
I should mention that I'm sumpless and skimmerless. Relying on critters to reach spaces I can't get to.

Do you have nassarius snails in that grain of sand?
 
No nassarius at this point, but had them in the past. There wasn't enough food for them to survive and they eventually all starved, including the tiger nassarius. I do have dwarf Ceriths and planaxis, which are a fraction of the size of nassarius, and they have no issues with the size of the grains. The top of my sandbed is sifted by a conch and the rest is taken care of by the Ceriths and planaxis.
 
On Peter's 25g , we put in an Octopus nano skimmer. It is small, fits into the back of the tank, and just chugs away 24/7. The best part is it was only $50 brand new. We also have algae in our 65g garage tank and we just added a Sea Hare. It was remarkable how much hair algae he got rid of on the first day.
 
Thanks for letting me know the snails should be ok with my grain size. Maybe I just have too much in the wrong places. I didn't have this constant algae problem until I kept adding sand and redoing the aquascape. Instead of changing grains maybe I'll just remove some.
 
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6 months ago.
 
Did not change sand. Just siphoned/cleaned it.

Removed the phosguard. Snails more active. Paly looks better. Still waiting for zoas to open.

Replaced chemi pure blue (high grade carbon+resins) with chemi pure elite (low grade carbon+resins+gfo). Algae seems to be getting under control.

Phosnet (gfo) costs 5x more than phosguard (aluminum oxide), so I'll stick with cpe for now... unless someone makes an argument spending more on cpb+phosnet.

Thanks for all the responses!
 
Why use GFO at all? What kind of phosphate levels are you currently dealing with? I find that GFO strips too much from the tank water and haven't used it since I started the tank. Same applied to the carbon. Mushrooms and the corals that you currently have in the tank don't actually mind richer waters.
 
Ibn said:
Why use GFO at all? What kind of phosphate levels are you currently dealing with? I find that GFO strips too much from the tank water and haven't used it since I started the tank. Same applied to the carbon. Mushrooms and the corals that you currently have in the tank don't actually mind richer waters.
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Because he had/has hair algae problems and was asking about cheaper options
 
Didn't read through the entire thread, but from the first page, he's running with 0 nitrates with phosphate levels of 0.04 - 0.08. The cheapest option would be, contrary to stripping the tank, raise nitrates up, manually remove as much algae as possible, and then add grazers.
 
I believe I was measuring 0 nitrates because the algae was consuming it.

I agree with water getting stripped. I bleached and/or killed an acro using too much phosguard.

My only defense against algae is an ac50 hob... and snails. No sump. No skimmer. Trying to maintain and increase coralline spread.

I once tried a seachem combo of matrix carbon, purigen, and phosguard. If I'm doing weekly water changes, I want it to be as simple as possible. With chemi pure elite there's no measuring. No refilling media bags. Just one rinse and it's ready.
 
--E-- said:
I believe I was measuring 0 nitrates because the algae was consuming it.

I agree with water getting stripped. I bleached and/or killed an acro using too much phosguard.

My only defense against algae is an ac50 hob... and snails. No sump. No skimmer. Trying to maintain and increase coralline spread.

I once tried a seachem combo of matrix carbon, purigen, and phosguard. If I'm doing weekly water changes, I want it to be as simple as possible. With chemi pure elite there's no measuring. No refilling media bags. Just one rinse and it's ready.
Click to expand...
Hang on back skimmer would really help you out.
Be aware chemi pure elite has a pretty low phosphate removing capability imo and is over priced.
 
Ibn said:
Why use GFO at all? What kind of phosphate levels are you currently dealing with? I find that GFO strips too much from the tank water and haven't used it since I started the tank. Same applied to the carbon. Mushrooms and the corals that you currently have in the tank don't actually mind richer waters.
Click to expand...
So after reading this I took my carbon and GFO out. My montis had been super pale, tried moving their positions, tried correcting potassium, tried a new salt mix (Fritz) and larger water changes to replenish anything missing. Potassium helped the plating orange monti but not the digitata. But every day since removing the carbon/GFO the corals have colored up a little more. Only problem is husband complained that the fish tank has a "smell" now... maybe I'll add a little carbon back...
 
It's certainly possible to overdue it. Each tank has its own sweet spot regarding how much to use. With carbon I don't feel like you need a lot to do the trick. Especially if you change it out frequently like every 2-4 weeks.
 
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